Mayor's Rating Up; Poll Sees Deep Split On School Policies

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER and MARJORIE CONNELLY

Published: April 23, 2004

Correction Appended

More New Yorkers approve of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's handling of his job than did last June, the latest New York Times Poll has found, and since June almost twice as many believe the city's economy is better. But the public is deeply divided over how he is handling the school system, an issue that Mr. Bloomberg has told voters should determine whether he is re-elected next year.

Of those polled, 38 percent say they approve of the way Mr. Bloomberg is handling his job, compared with 24 percent last June, a historic low for this poll. More New Yorkers disapprove of the way the mayor is handling the schools than approve, 46 percent to 38 percent, and the number approving has slipped from a year ago.

Still, the poll shows that some of Mr. Bloomberg's policies are very popular. For example, his plan to make third graders who fail reading or math tests repeat that grade -- a central element of his education plan -- was supported by 63 percent of those polled. A surprisingly similar percentage said they approved of the mayor's antismoking law, and that number has increased over the last year.

The respondents to the poll showed strong support for his other initiatives. When asked if they liked the idea of New York playing host to the Summer Olympics in 2012, a goal Mr. Bloomberg has actively pursued, 71 percent said yes. Almost half said they would like to see a new sports stadium built on the West Side of Manhattan (although far fewer, 21 percent, liked the idea of taxpayers picking up some of the tab for that stadium) .

That said, 64 percent also said that they would like to see another person sitting at the mayor's desk in City Hall after the 2005 election.

The poll was conducted by telephone April 16-21 with 1,132 adults throughout the city, and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The juxtaposition of how people respond to Mr. Bloomberg's policies and how they feel about him underscores the paradox of his mayoralty: while the majority of those polled offered hearty approval of some of the mayor's signature policies or conditions in the city, something about him arouses antipathy. When asked if they viewed Mr. Bloomberg favorably or unfavorably, only 28 percent replied ''favorably,'' but significantly more people said he was doing a good job.

''Obviously he knows what he's doing,'' Bernice Colon, 66, who lives in the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx, said in a followup interview. Yet she still finds herself disliking the mayor. ''He doesn't give me a message. I know he's going to say, 'I really like you,' but I don't think he really does.''

Those feelings were echoed by other respondents.

''I don't believe Mayor Bloomberg is in touch with what the common people feel or need in this city,'' said Bruce Sykes, 69, echoing a common refrain of the last few years. But Mr. Sykes, who lives in Washington Heights, in Manhattan, added: ''The problem is, you don't know what these people are going to be like until they get in. There's no on-the-job training to be mayor. You walk in, and what you bring to the job, fundamentally, is your own personality and your own philosophy.''

Yet for all those New Yorkers who think Mr. Bloomberg should go, few have strong feelings about any of his potential political opponents. Almost 70 percent of the respondents said they had not heard enough about six rivals the mayor may face in 2005 to have an opinion; only former borough president Fernando Ferrer, a former mayoral candidate, was well known, and 37 percent said they knew enough to form an opinion.

Although the poll found that most respondents want a new mayor, it is also notable that in a Times poll in 1997, 48 percent of those polled said the same thing about Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, and that eight months later he was re-elected in a landslide.

Although many of those polled said that they felt their taxes had gone up and that they were having a hard time financially, a full 45 percent said they thought New York City's economy was ''good.'' Only 24 percent thought so last June.

While it is not possible to come to clear conclusions about why Mr. Bloomberg's poll numbers have bounced upward, there is a strong suggestion that perceived improvements in the economy have helped him. For example, he has 45 percent approval among people who say the economy is good, but only 34 percent from those who think it is bad.

''The city has started to recover from 9/11 and businesses have started to come back,'' said Knut Johannessen, 75, a retired factory worker, who said he was still struggling to make it through each month.

If voters take Mr. Bloomberg up on his invitation to judge him by the state of the schools, he may be in trouble. When asked if they were generally satisfied with the quality of the city's schools, 72 percent of those polled said they were not, exactly the same percentage of those who expressed dissatisfaction in 1993.

Among those polled, 61 percent think parents have too little say in how the public schools are run, and 37 percent say the mayor has too much. While 16 percent say his handling of education has been the best thing he has done since he took office, 11 percent say it is the worst.

Correction: April 24, 2004, Saturday A front-page article yesterday about a New York Times poll of New York City residents misstated the increase since last June in the number of people saying they believe that the city's economy is better than it was five years ago. More than twice as many gave that response in the latest poll, not ''almost'' twice as many.